Itty Bitty Foamie Teardrop Test Build Thread

[John61CT]

Even for an (in-theory) bolts-only job, no one 'round here would do a hitch mount for under $100.

Just covers their liability insurance 8-)

[mreidsma]

Just have to say, this has been my favorite trailer project on here for the past year or so. So many cool new ideas for me to try on my next one!

(Although I suspect my wife would like me to finish the first one before I start a second one...)


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[pchast]

The only thing on the estimate I would really question is th e electrical labor. The ones I did took about 20 minutes. But then I don't know your car's setup.

The other prices might be undercut 20 to 30% if you could find Internet prices.

[amandacreiglow]

Just have to say, this has been my favorite trailer project on here for the past year or so. So many cool new ideas for me to try on my next one!

(Although I suspect my wife would like me to finish the first one before I start a second one.

So that's what I need to keep me from working on my second one before I've finished the first? A wife? Where do I sign up for one of those? ;-)

But thanks! That's nice to hear, especially after what has been a frustrating week. Don't know if I mentioned, but harbor freight messed up the title on the trailer, so getting it registered with the DMV has been a little problematic. At this point they're issuing me a new one and having it airmailed to me. So hopefully I'll get it registered next week, in time for my tentative leave date of next Saturday. But it means that camping is out of the question this weekend, even if I did manage to get it ready for the first shakedown tomorrow, which isn't even close.

Not that I would have been able to anyway, since it turns out that the hitch installation I thought I had on the books for today is actually for next Thursday, since it'll take that long for the part to come in. Welp. I guess that gives me a bit longer to research non uhaul places to get it done, but, honestly, I actually did get a couple of quotes for it, and one was probably similar (they said $100-150 to install it once I obtained the kit myself, and we didn't talk electrical, so that probably brings the figure up into the ballpark of even), and the other quote I got was significantly higher. Such is the pain of owning an old SAAB in Northern Virginia. I might, as was mentioned, be able to bring that down a bit if I source parts myself, but honestly, with everything else I've got going on getting ready to leave and how far any kind of automotive work is out of my wheelhouse, I'm thinking I'll just bring it to the people who do this all the time and *just* do this all the time and let them handle it.

The bright side of not going on the trip this weekend is that I don't have to work on the specific things to get it road worthy and can jump around a bit. So, last night, after getting the coat of white exterior aint on the body of the trailer that should serve as a final coat for most of it, I spent some quality time sculpting the cooler.



This is before I realized that something went wrong in my measurements and it was slightly too tall and had to cut it down. The lid doesn't meet the body quite as nicely as it does in this picture. But the bottom is contoured to fit the tray that it'll be sitting on that'll be attached to the drawer slides, so it should be all good.

I had been planning on putting a drain in the bottom for emptying water out, but I think that is getting cut. Just too many things to do and too little time. Plus, I'll be making a tray to keep things up out of the water that should make it easier to remove things from the cooler anyway, so that should help make tipping the water out not such a big deal... just pull everything out, set it on the counter, tip the cooler out and set the tray back in.

Planning on fiberglassing the inside tonight. Will be my first time ever using fiberglass, but a big part of the point of the cooler is to do this for the first time to get a sense of how hard it is so that I know how much I like or hate it going into the planning for my second trailer. I'm... possibly kind of excited, honestly, although I imagine it's all going to be a bit of a mess.

Haven't settled on what's going to go on the surface of the fiberglass... I don't know to what extent it needs to be food safe, since everything in there is always going to be in containers. Is there any reason I can't just throw some white spray paint on there? Or even get a can of some white rustoleum enamel? I had planned on using the rustoleum tub and tile refinishing kit, since I've used it before and it gives such a nice finish, but I don't think I have the time for that at this point. Would rather just grab something I can throw on there...

Also got the back hatch up yesterday, and now am working on the latch for it. I think, though, I'm going to need to slightly adjust where the hinge is attached to the body, which means a ton of drilling and screwing, but should be straightforward. So that's coming along.

Bought the accent paint for the outside, today, too! I went with a bright blue and a bright green that should mesh well intensity-wise with the red of the trailer base. So that's exciting. Finalizing what I want the design to look like in my head. It's a little more complicated that I was first planning, because I need more distraction higher up on the trailer than I had thought I would. But it should be doable. Need to wait at least three days for the paint to cure before the frog tape says that it's safe to apply it, though. Plus, I need to get the canvas on the back hatch and the doors, which means I need to finish the back hatch and the doors... So much to do!

Also, I'm considering getting a can or two of the rustoleum automotive gloss spray and giving the whole thing a coat of that just for the sheen... anyone used that before? How did it turn out?




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[GPW]

Wow , a Cooler too !!!

We’ve owned several old Old Saab's in the past … and really Loved them ( especially my Lima bean Green 96 V4 ) , but they were difficult to get parts for here in the South where they were not as popular as they were in the Northern climes … We had to pay for parts in advance and there were no returns .
( hopefully things have improved ) .. As we learned with Saabs (Volvo’s too) sometimes you just have to PAY …

[amandacreiglow]

Wow , a Cooler too !!!

We’ve owned several old Old Saab's in the past … and really Loved them ( especially my Lima bean Green 96 V4 ) , but they were difficult to get parts for here in the South where they were not as popular as they were in the Northern climes … We had to pay for parts in advance and there were no returns .
( hopefully things have improved ) .. As we learned with Saabs (Volvo’s too) sometimes you just have to PAY …

Yeah, that's what I've been learning. Still love it too much to regret it, yet, though. So that's something. :-)

Got the interior of the cooler fiberglassed last night. Not gonna lie; it's a pretty rough looking job. But I learned a lot, and that was the point of it, so that's good. Some poor project was always going to be the first thing I fiberglassed, and this little cooler just drew the short straw, I guess.



If I wanted to spend more time and money on it, I would go back and do a second layer, by as it is I think I'm just going to leave it for a couple days to full cure, sand the roughest bits and put on some rustoleum appliance enamel spray. I'm planning on putting in a little removeable metal tray to keep all the food and solid ice up out of the water anyway, so very little should ever actually contact the walls or bottom, and the one layer will hopefully do the job.

One entertaining (read: tragic) thing that happened was that I lost like a quarter of the big batch of epoxy to sudden violent heat death. I had read that you should mix it up in small batches that you can go through quickly, but it looks like I underestimated just how small it needed to be and how quickly it needed to be used. I noticed the epoxy being a bit warmer as I applied it, but all of a sudden I looked in the cup and it was a mostly solid mass that was putting off a lot of heat and doing its best to melt the bottom of the container! Luckily I had enough extra to finish the project in smaller batches, but it still hurt my soul a little.

Got the sink put together! Needed some tiny long nuts and bolts to get it assembled, which I had to buy special. Learned a lot about metric and fractional bolt sizes this project, for sure!



I don't have the sink permanently mounted in there, so I can pull the whole thing out if needed to make it easier to mount the shell onto the base this weekend, but there's how it looks loosely sitting in place. Pretty happy with it so far. :-)

Also got out the pieces for the tongue box. Yesterday I sanded and primed them, and just now I got the exterior paint on them. Gave me my first chance to see how the colors I picked will look, really, and good lord are they bright!



Might be slightly regretting how bright... but I'm thinking I'm going to stay the course. Hopefully with crisp lines, contrasted with the white and bolted to a bright red trailer and towed behind a bright red car it'll all look a bit more of a piece. I guess time will tell. :-)


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[John61CT]

Progress is beautiful!

[Nodrog]

Hi Amanda- The cooler looks good, you can sand the he** out of it, and fair the glass edges. I like the tongue box idea you have, any idea what it weighs? Just curious....Anyway, the whole project is looking good! Have a great day, Nodrog

[amandacreiglow]

Thanks guys.

Nodrog, the deck box is heavier than I'd like... 32 pounds. Plus, it's big enough that I think I'm going to end up needing a tongue extender. But it gives me almost eight much needed cubic feet of storage and electrical space, so I'm making peace with it.

This weekend has been frustrating. I was hoping to get the trailer mounted on the harbor freight base on Saturday, but here we are early Sunday morning and it's not done... nor will it be for probably another 18 hours or so. Turns out I got defeated by repacking the bearings. One of the grease seals really didn't want to come out of there, so I ended up mangling it in the process of forcing it out. I almost cried. (We'll go with almost). But it turned out that tales of how hard these grease seals are were greatly exaggerated, and I was able to order another one off amazon with free one day shipping. I felt better. Then I went back out to the garage to finish cleaning the bearings at least, so that when the seal got here I would be ready to go. Aaaaand this happened:



Turns out that in forcing out the grease seal, I also managed to slightly deform one of the bearings. Again, I almost cried (still going with almost). But again, found the part I needed on amazon... though I had to pay for one day shipping this time :-/ But if all goes well, trailer mounting day is tomorrow.

To cheer myself up, I painted the exterior.




I'd decided that I really wasn't going to be happy with the brightness of the colors that I picked out before and painted the deck box with, so when I was out buying degreasers for the bearings I picked out some more subdued tones. There'a more paint seepage than I'd like under the tape lines, but I'm pretty happy with it regardless.

Almost happy enough to forget that I didn't get the trailer mounted this weekend. Yup, still going with almost. ;-)


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[GPW]

That looks so Cool !!! ...

[KCStudly]

Excellent paint scheme!

[mreidsma]

Love the paint scheme! Glad you had something else to do while waiting for parts.


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[aggie79]

Love the paint scheme!

I'm right there with mreidsma. I think the paint colors and design look wonderful!

Glad you had something else to do while waiting for parts.

That is a wise saying that ought to be the mantra of all foamie, teardrop, and TTT projects. Most of us are trying to build with limited time, so it is good to have parallel projects to move to when one project throws us a curve. This practice allows us to make best use of the little time we have to devote to a big project.

[John61CT]

Yes, beaut of a paint job, reminds me of those artsy airliners

[ScottE]

Looking Good